I took advantage of my eight hours hurtling across the continent in a small aluminum tube yesterday to start reducing my ‘to read’ pile.
I started with the International Crisis Group paper No 89 titled “Afghanistan: New U.S. Administration, New Directions“. As Jari says, this is worth the read for summerizing the current situation and examining the range of ’solutions’ that have recently been proposed. The five ‘no-nos’ that they warn against:
- Don’t negotiate with jihadi groups, especially from a position of weakness.
- Don’t try to solve all of Central/Southwest Asia’s problems with one solution that’s got too many moving parts. Bilateral negotiations now and a more comprehensive stabilization/peace process later.
- Withdraw. Pulling out would be bad. Very bad. Don’t think you can bomb your way to a solution from 35,000 feet
- Install a better strongman. The lure of putting someone in power who can make the trains (or, in the case of Afghanistan, the train) run on time may be great but will ultimately be counter-productive. Work on the rule of law and democratic institutions.
- Arming villagers. There are enough weapons in Afghanistan. The last thing the country needs is us handing out a bunch of AK-47s in the hopes that villagers will use them the way we want them to.
Other nuggets that I thought were particularly well put (and which have highlighted anecdotally here):
Following the 2001 intervention, justice was deemed a “luxury” for a devastated country. Powerful international actors, including the U.S., viewed action against predetory powerbrokers as too destabilisin, which fuelled criminality.
And…
[T]acit acceptance of opium trafficking by foreign military forces as a way to extract intelligence information and occasional military support in operations against the Taliban and Al Qaeda undermines stabilization efforts.
And…
“…by one estimate international contractors are responsible for almost three quarters of U.S. development assistance in Afghanistan. Layers upon layers of subcontracting appear to Afghans as a case of many hands legally taking a cut before funds reach the target program. Similarities between this structure and the Afghan patronage networks that the international community criticises so stridently are not lost on them.”
Indeed.
